The Right Of Law Abiding Citizens

by: Kim Weissman

When Bill
Clinton shut down the government in 1995 and managed to
blame the republicans, the ploy worked so well that it has become a
staple of so-called "governance" by democrats.

It
will be recalled that Clinton had demanded a number of budgetary
concessions from the Congress, and when the Congress refused to give
in, Clinton acted like the spoiled brat on the playground who doesn't
get to play the position he wants on the baseball team, and takes his
ball and goes home. Clinton vetoed the budget, and left the government
unable to operate for a short period of time. Those who depend on the
federal government for everything lamented the end of the world. Those
who saw the federal government as more of the problem than the solution
asked, "So What?" Clinton portrayed the shutdown to the media as
entirely the fault of those mean and nasty republicans who refused to
give in to his "reasonable" demands.

This has
been a tried and true tactic of would-be despots throughout history:
issue ludicrous demands and call them "reasonable", and then blame
others for any negative consequences when they failed to capitulate to
those demands. The media, of course, took the White House line and ran
with it. The spin was a smash hit. Republicans were vilified and have
been blamed ever since, and it became an article of faith among the
left, the media (pardon the redundancy), and the public that the
government shutdown was all the fault of those mean ("mean-spirited"
entering the lexicon) and nasty republicans.

Just
as it has become an article of faith among the left, the media, and the
public that republican are all rich, that democrats care about people
and not solely about the acquisition of power, and that Clinton's
impeachment was all about sex. So stung were republicans by being
tagged with the shutdown that when Clinton made new threats in 1998 to
shut down the government unless he got his way, the Congress
capitulated with hardly a whimper.

Hillary
Clinton is even now trying to ride that old horse, unleashing her
attacks on her new republican Senatorial opponent Rick Lazio by
claiming that he voted with the evil Newt Gingrich to shut down the
government -- as though someone actually submitted legislation in the
House, which then held a vote to shut down the government. Last week
Senate democrats tried to repeat the same gambit, first threatening to
shut down the Senate unless Clinton's pending judicial nominees were
confirmed immediately, and then threatening to shut down the Senate
unless they got a vote on a symbolic gesture commending the "Million
Mom March".

Republicans once again capitulated on
the substantive issue, pledging a marathon vote on some 41 pending
judicial nominees; and last week they acceded to democrat threats and
voted on the democrats' non-binding, symbolic bill commending the
"Million Mom March". But republicans joined the fun, submitting and
voting on their own symbolic bill that affirmed the right
-- not the government licensed and circumscribed privilege
-- of law abiding citizens to keep and bear firearms. The vote results
demonstrate that a larger majority of Senators still respect the
Constitution than are swayed by emotionalism and the left's demagoguery
about gun control.

The first bill was submitted by
democrat Tom Daschle (S.Amdt. 3148), and passed by 50-49.
It provided:

"(1) the
organizers, sponsors, and participants of the Million Mom March should
be commended for rallying to demand sensible gun safety legislation;
and

(2) Congress should immediately pass a
conference report to accompany H.R. 1501, the Violent and Repeat
Juvenile Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act, before the
Memorial Day Recess, and include the Lautenberg-Kerrey gun show
loophole amendment and the other Senate-passed provisions designed to
limit access to firearms by juveniles, convicted felons, and other
persons prohibited by law from purchasing or possessing firearms."

The second bill was submitted by
republican Trent Lott (S.Amdt. 3150), and passed by 69-30.
It provided, among other clauses calling for stricter prosecution of
criminals, that:

"The right
of each law-abiding United States citizen to own a firearm for any
legitimate purpose, including self-defense or recreation, should not be
infringed."

Democrat Senator
Minority Leader Tom Daschle threatened to continuously demagogue the
gun issue by reading a list of the names of "gun victims" daily. On May
22, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) began "…it has been more than a year since
the Columbine tragedy, and still this Republican Congress refuses to
act on sensible gun legislation. Since Columbine, thousands of
Americans have been killed by gunfire. Until we act, Democrats in the
Senate will read some of the names of those who lost their lives to gun
violence in the past year, and we will continue to do so every day that
the Senate is in session."

Lest
anyone forget, it was Bill Clinton and the
democrats who killed the juvenile justice reform bill
(H.R.1501) and the 24 hour gun show background check (H.R.2122) last
June with a myriad of irrelevant, self-contradictory, oppressive,
unconstitutional, and foolish amendments, as well as procedural
maneuvers to delay a vote. And democrats were not alone in proposing
onerous amendments. Republicans offered some of the most offensive
(Coburn # 171 -- prohibiting the possession of firearms by other than
police officers, security guards, members of the armed forces or
National Guard) and self-contradictory (Doolittle # 158 --
the Second Amendment protects the unalienable right of individuals to
keep and use firearms to protect themselves; but Doolittle # 160 --
bans the use of firearms).

H.R.1501 and H.R.2122
would have enacted the sale of mandatory safety locks with the sale of
every gun, 24 hour background checks at all gun shows, and a version of
the Brady law which would have prevented violent juveniles from owning
guns. Eventually the 24 hour gun show background check passed the House
218-211, in a bipartisan vote with 45 democrats joining 173
republicans. But that could not be reconciled with the 72 hour check
passed by the Senate and demanded by Clinton, the sole effect of which
would have been to destroy gun shows.

Daschle's
theatrics deserve to be treated with the same disdain as Al Gore's
habit of labeling anything with which he disagrees as a "risky scheme".
Daschle and the democrats would contribute more to the debate if they
also included the much longer list of the names
of people who defended themselves or their
families with guns: the battered wife who finally put a stop to
beatings that no police or courts could prevent, the would-be rape
victim who made her attacker regret his choice of occupation, the
mother at home alone with her children who scared off the burglar
simply by chambering a shell into her shotgun, the shopkeeper who
dissuaded thugs intent on robbery.

These
incidents happen every day, although the media prefers to ignore them.
Daschle and the rest of the democrats also prefer to ignore these
people who refuse to become victims of Daschle's and Clinton's gun
control agenda. But it has been truly said that facts can
be stubborn things. And the facts, as documented in a
report by the National Institute of Justice in 1997, are that
private citizens use firearms an average of at least 296 times every
day to deter crimes.

A 1994
study by the Clinton-Reno Justice Department was in the same range,
finding an average of 227 defensive uses of firearms by private
citizens every day. Daschle and the democrats
should also be called to account for the many people on his list of
"gun victims" who only became victims because the gun controllers took
away their ability to defend themselves; or because violent criminals
were released from prison early in misplaced shows of leftist
"compassion", or because the Clinton-Reno Justice Department refused to
put criminals in jail, or refused to enforce existing laws against such
criminals.

Criminals such as the 16 year old who
shot 7 people at Washington's National Zoo in April, who shouldn't have
had a gun at all if gun control laws actually affected criminals, who
had a record of armed robberies from the age of 13
and still managed to get a gun on the black market.

Criminals
such as the man who shot up the Jewish community center last August,
who shouldn't have had any weapons at all if gun control laws actually
affected criminals, who had a history of mental illness and still
managed to buy, among other weapons, a banned assault weapon, an Uzi
submachine gun.

Criminals such as the former
Black Panther, who shouldn't have had any weapons at all if gun control
laws actually affected criminals, because he had a felony record, and
who was charged with shooting a cop in Atlanta with what police
described as an assault weapon. (It seems that criminals just aren't
obeying the law that banned assault weapons -- imagine that!

The assault weapon ban has also, according to a December 1999
report from the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, "failed
to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or
multiple gunshot wound victims" -- the very reasons given
by hysterical democrats for the need to enact the ban in the first
place.)

And what about the several hundred
thousand felons who Clinton himself has boasted were prevented by the
Brady law from buying a gun legally, yet who were never even
prosecuted for the 10 year felony of trying to do so? What
does Bill Clinton think those hundreds of thousands of felons did after
being turned down at gun stores? Does he think that those felons just
went home and decided to get an honest job and go straight? Or did they
simply go to their neighborhood black market gun dealer and buy
whatever they wanted?

It doesn't take a rocket
scientist to figure it out. Even Tom Daschle should be able to figure
it out. Criminals don't obey the law.
That's why we call them criminals: because they commit crimes. How many
of those "gun victims" eulogized and exploited by Daschle were only
victims because they were rendered defenseless and helpless by the
likes of Tom Daschle, Bill Clinton, Sarah Brady, Rosie O'Donnelll, and
all the other advocates of gun control?